Abstract

This study suggests that some of the negative arguments related to naturalized plants raised in academic discussions are unreasonable through an analysis of trends in the academia's research on naturalized plants in South Korea. A total of 117 academic papers related to "naturalized plants" on the Korean Studies Information Service System (KISS) website were re-classified by space, the number of vascular plant species, the number of naturalized plant species, naturalization index (NI), and urbanization index (UI). Correlation between human interference and naturalized plant distribution, and between sizes of conservation areas and naturalized plant distribution were analyzed. According to the results, while there was a tendency between urban population and UI (<TEX>$r^2$</TEX> = 0.70, p = .000), the number of visitors in national parks had no relation to either the NI or the UI (r = 0.028 and r = 0.013, respectively). Likewise, there was no correlation between national parks or conservation areas and naturalized plant distribution (r = 0.014, r = 0.17, respectively). The average NI and the UI of forest areas were approximately twice as low as those of national parks. In estimated regression equation, when one hypothesizes that the entire 4,952 taxa of plants growing in South Korea, the number of naturalized plants, combining paleo-naturalized plants and neo-naturalized plants, amounted to 2,398 taxa, 48.43%. In the academia, Korean Endemic Plants are less than one quarter of 4,952 taxa. Such results signify that, contrary to discussions in the academia, it is meaningless to distinguish between naturalized plants and native plants. In certain aspects, academic discussions on naturalized plants in Korea have proceeded in a manner similar to cultural exclusion by mono-culturalism in a multi-cultural environment.

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